Chapter 26: Messages and Misunderstandings
As Shepard leaned against the cool wall of the elevator already anticipating how good it was going to feel to crawl into bed, her omni-tool pinged with an incoming message. With a little whimper of disappointment she flicked her wrist, opening the brief message.
Shepard, I need to speak to you before the mission briefing tomorrow.
-Garrus-
Sighing with frustration she watched the door of the elevator close, obscuring her warm bed as she pressed the button for the Crew Deck and sent a quick reply.
Meet me in the mess ASAP.
-Shepard-
She was greatly relieved to find the mess deserted when she arrived. Shepard made a bee line for the water heater and managed to whip up a quick cup of cocoa before Garrus made his way out of the Battery.
"Commander, I want to be put on the team for tomorrow's mission."
"Garrus, you don't even know what the mission is! Why on earth would you insist on coming along?"
"It doesn't matter, I want to be there."
"That's not a reason, well, not a good one anyways."
"Just... it's hard to explain."
"Try me!"
"This isn't something I want to discuss in the mess."
"Fine, if we go up to my cabin, will you tell me?"
Garrus hesitated.
"WILL YOU TELL ME?!"
"Fine, but only on one condition."
"What's that?"
"That you hear out everything I have to say before you respond."
"I'm your commanding officer, I can talk whenever I want."
"Not if you want to hear the reason I want to go along."
Shepard sighed in exasperation. "Augh, fine! Whatever!"
The ride up to Shepard's cabin was incredibly awkward. With neither of them willing to speak, they spent the minute or two in awkward silence, trying their best to avoid each others' gaze.
Shepard breathed a sigh of relief as she bolted out of the lift and into the relative safety of her quarters, flopping down on the end of her couch closest to the best and giving the turian still shifting nervously from foot to foot in the doorway an incredulous look.
"You can come in you know..." she said when he didn't move any further. He entered, and stood a few feet in front of her, jaw flexing and relaxing and flexing again. "Well sit down!" She said impatiently, gesturing at the couch. She watched, drinking her cocoa with one eyebrow raised as he awkwardly lowered his bulky form to perch on the edge of the farthest cushion.
"Now, how about you tell me what was so incredibly important that you couldn't talk to me about it in front of anyone else." Garrus let out a deep sigh and ran one taloned hand over his fringe, but after several false starts, said nothing.
"Look if this is about Thane-"
"Spirits! Must everything be about Thane with you?! Ever since you came to in the med bay that day it's been Thane this and Thane that. And I thought it was bad when Kaidan was aboard, let alone after you met him on Horizon, that was a walk in the park compared to this. Now on top of everything else you bring him on board?! Did you even stop for a moment to think how the rest of us would feel about this?!" His eyes were starting to get wild as he flexed his talons in frustration, trying to hold back the strength of his feelings.
"And how, pray-tell do 'the rest of us' feel about this Garrus?" she hissed, her voice filled with poison. "By all means tell me, because I'm just dying to know." By then she was too angry to tell him she had considered their feelings, in excruciating detail in fact, and it had worried her almost constantly since she had made her decision. That didn't matter anymore, however, as he second guessed and berated her, making her see red. She just wanted him to stop this attack on her pride, even if it meant putting her best friend in his place.
"You DID die Shepard!" he fired back angrily. "You don't know what it was like for the rest of us who were left behind to mourn you! You don't know..." Suddenly the fire was gone from his eyes and the haunted look he had worn when she found him alone and exhausted on Omega returned as his voice trailed off to just above a whisper as he turned away from her. "You don't know what it did to us..." For a moment he just sat there staring into space, shoulders slumped, eyes dead as he tried to explain his feelings. It broke her heart to see him like this, her best friend with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the idea that she could be the cause...
"Garrus, I-"
"Shepard, please. There are some things you need to know, things I need to tell you while I still have the courage. You've been patient, haven't pressed me about the past, about Omega, but now I need you to know. I need you to know how I got my entire squad killed..." He turned to look at her, and his piercing blue eyes seemed to bore into for a moment before they focused on the names etched into his visor. The names of his men, forever before his eyes, never to be forgotten.
"You probably remember me leaving the SR1 for Spectre training. Hell, the only reason I even considered going was because you kept after me about it. Things went pretty well at first. I did well in all the categories, even set some records for sniping. Guess my hand-to-hand wasn't as rusty as I had thought it might be, but then again I suppose chasing a rogue Spectre has a way of keeping you on your game. Then one night while I was prepping for the next day's exercises, I get this message from Admiral Hackett." Garrus pulled up a message on his omni-tool. Shepard abandoned her cocoa and sat next to him where she could read it.
Mr. Garrus Vakarian
C/O Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Training Facility
It is with a very heavy heart I write to give you the news of the death of the following Alliance soldiers: Commanding Officer Commander Shepard, Executive Officer Charles Pressly, and the 20 crew members of the SSV Normandy listed in the attached file. They lost their lives while fighting against the geth and were brave soldiers who did the Alliance proud.
Both the Alliance and the Council offer their most sincere condolences and thank you for their support and service in our efforts to keep the galaxy a safe place for human and alien kind.
With Thanks and Regards Admiral Steven Hackett
Shepard gaped at the less than personal death notice that Garrus (and likely all of her former crew mates who had been absent during the attack) had received. She couldn't imagine getting a notice like that about someone she had fought with let alone a close friend like Garrus.
"Garrus... I don't know what to say..." Garrus swallowed thickly, blinking back tears at the poignant memories that threatened to flood his heart with the same despair that had overwhelmed him that day.
"Neither did I..." he whispered. "I didn't leave my room for days, not even to eat or go to drills. Just spent all my time sitting there staring at the blank walls trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you were gone. The trainers tried to intervene at first, but they seemed to catch on pretty quick and left me alone. I tried to find out the truth of what had happened but no one I could get a hold or knew anything specific."
"It wasn't long before the media got wind of the Normandy's destruction and then it all went to hell. Of course, none of the reports said a thing about the Reapers, just blamed the attack on the geth. The sad thing is, everyone seemed to just accept it, they just gave right in and believed that Commander Shepard, hero of the Citadel and of all the Council races, the woman who had defeated Saren and Sovereign himself had been taken out like a dog by some of the very synthetics from whom she had saved millions. Some of them even said..." He looked away and took a deep breath, brow plates furrowed, mouth plates curled up in a snarl that showed off his impressive needle sharp teeth. He couldn't bring himself to face her as he spoke.
"Some of them said you had gone insane, that you were indoctrinated or worse, and the Reapers were just a figment of your imagination. Soon after, the Alliance joined in the witch hunt. They released a statement denouncing your claims of any impending Reaper invasion, saying you had likely fallen victim to PTSD or some bullshit... I tried everything I could think of to get them to take it back, to clear you name. I even went to the hierarchy for help but they wouldn't even hear me out let alone help exonerate 'the first human Spectre'."
"Eventually I had skipped enough sessions and caused enough of a fuss that I was asked to leave Spectre training, so I stuffed the few personal items I had in a nap-sack and headed for the nearest bar. After that... I don't remember anything until I found myself on Omega. Spirits that place was filthy, as bad as the worst wards on the Citadel. Murder and drugs ran rampant and the gangs, the gangs were the worst. Looking back now, I doubt anything I did even made a dent in it."
"That's not true!" She said gently, putting a hand on her friends shoulder and trying to look into his eyes as he avoided her gaze. "That's not true and you know it! No one but you could have become so feared that it took three merc groups uniting to take you down and they still didn't get you!" she said, her eyes burned fiercely with conviction as he finally turned to look at them.
"They would have," he said softly, looking deeply ashamed. "The truth is I wanted them to..." Her eyes grew wide.
"You don't mean that..." but her voice wavered in the face of the hopelessness that emanated from him.
"Shepard I got my entire team killed. Well all but one," he said, his expression suddenly darkening.
"What to you mean 'all but one'? Is one of them still out there? What happened?" Her surprise was evident, understandable given that he had never mentioned the circumstances in which he had lost his men, but if telling Shepard a bit about what losing her had done to him had been difficult, then admitting his failure to her was excruciating. Ever since he had helped her save Dr. Michel, Garrus had valued her opinion of him. By the time she had died, the way he looked in her eyes mattered more to him than any evaluation he had ever received, and now he was about to tell her the details of his biggest blunder.
Slowly, methodically, he recounted the tale of his sojourn on Omega: of how he had been awoken by the stench of injustice, how he had decided to take a stand against the strong who battered the weak, and about how his conviction had grown into something greater. He watched as first anger then sadness were etched deep into her features, tears sliding down her cheeks as he spoke of covering the bodies of the men he had fought with and, in the end, failed to protect. By the end he was so deeply immersed in the shadows of the past that he had forgotten her presence until he felt her lean forward and, ever so tenderly, and press her warm, soft forehead to his.
It was at that moment, of course, that the door hissed open and Thane Krios walked in...